Imagine waking up in the morning and seeing nothing but trees from your breakfast table. That's what the lucky inhabitants of the Daisen Residency experience every day thanks to Keisuke Kawaguchi and K2 Design, who facilitated a "sensitive dialogue" between the home and its verdant site in a forest near Yonago City. The designers constructed the home as a set of rooms that are then connected to one another with a series of short passages.

Virtually none of the cherry and pine trees on the site were disturbed in the construction of this gorgeous Japanese home. But that took some doing. The design team had to structure each block of the house differently, each with its own pitched roof even, to correspond with their particularly placing among the cluster. Natural light and passive design were also taken into consideration.

The home is lifted off the ground to prevent snowdrift in winter and moisture or heat retention during summer months. Large windows throughout make the distinction between indoors and outdoors virtually indistinguishable, and the interior matches the forest with its use of natural materials such as wood flooring. A shining example of architecture that coexists with nature, the Daisen Residency allows the forest to flourish as if the house weren’t even there.